


sigh no more

by casdoms (moffwithhishead)



Series: season 10 codas [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Guilt, M/M, Mark of Cain, prose-y things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 07:50:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3888253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moffwithhishead/pseuds/casdoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas tries to reason with him, that his face looks no different, that he’s still the same person, no matter what the Mark makes him feel. </p><p>Dean laughs because he knows it’s not true, not really. Maybe his face looks no different to his brother or to Charlie but he can see it in the mirror. </p><p>He’ll catch a puff of smoke out of the corner of his eye sometimes. A quick flash of something that looks like a horn on his head when he’s driving down the interstate. The black eyes, the something else he doesn’t have a name for on his cheeks, the way his teeth seem to resemble a vampire on his bad days. </p><p>He sees it, just like Cas sees it. Just like he sees Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sigh no more

**Author's Note:**

> so basically I just wanted to write something and this quote:
> 
>  
> 
> **“You never apologized to me for hurting me, but I apologized to you 12 times for being angry about it.”**  
> 
> 
> kinda inspired (provoked?) word vomit. does this make sense? we just don't know.
> 
>  **warnings** : dean's depressed, obviously. there's very brief mentions of "taking himself out of the equation" i.e. the allusions to suicide. mentions of puking? um... it's sad. and angsty. negative thoughts about sam. mentions of john.

_Serve God, love me and mend_  
_This is not the end_  
_Lived unbruised, we are friends_  
_And I'm sorry_  
_I'm sorry_

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes an apology is not in words.

Sometimes an apology is removing the problem, without being asked, without being 100% sure what the problem is. Sometimes an apology consists of space and implicit forgiveness, even when you don’t forgive them. Sometimes an apology is anger overflowing in words you don’t mean just because you can’t figure out who you’re more mad at - them or yourself. Sometimes an apology is as simple as a shrug of your shoulders or opening the passenger side door for the other person to slide on in. Sometimes an apology is letting them stay.

Dean knows that. He’s been apologizing his entire life.

His bravery, day in and day out, is an apology to his mother. For not being able to stop her when Cas sent him back, for not being able to save her when he was a kid. For not being able to give Sam the life she wanted for him, the life he deserves. 

His ability to follow orders, to curl in on himself and ignore his deepest wants and fears, was an apology to his father. For not being able to save mom, for not being enough, for being too young to be the support system his dad needed. For not shooting that monster when he was a kid, for freezing and being scared. For putting Sam in danger. 

Leaving after the whole Gadreel clusterfuck had been his apology to Sam. Saving his life all those times had been an apology. Giving his brother space, swallowing down his own feelings and anger. An apology.

Hunting in itself is an apology.

To his mother for not being able to save her. To his father for not being enough. To Sam for the times he failed him. To Cas for all the sacrifices he’s made in Dean’s name. To the people who he couldn’t save. To the world, an atonement for all the sins he’s committed. To himself for the years he spent torturing in Hell.

Being there after Purgatory, for Cas, as much as he could - that was meant to be an apology. Slicing his way through Purgatory, killing anything that stood between him and finding his best friend - that had been an apology. Handing the First Blade over. Staying away as a demon. Helping him with Claire. Helping whenever Cas asked for it.

They were all apologies. 

And the fucked up thing about all of it? Most of these things? He’s got nothing to apologize for.

He knows that - honestly, he does. But his brain doesn’t seem to care about that, about common sense and logic, because there are days where the guilt makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning. 

There’s a notebook in the back of his dresser, shoved under a stack of old t-shirts that are well past saving, with all the names of the people that they couldn’t save in it. The ones that they should’ve been able to, but didn’t. 

Sometimes he wonders if his brother has a similar list tucked away somewhere. A part of him doubts it (Sam has a way of letting things go and not letting the guilt swallow him whole) but a bigger part of him knows that his brother could never forget them. Could never forget the faces of the people they failed. 

Dean’s list is long and his friends, his family? They’re at the top of it. 

  1. Mom
  2. Sam
  3. Kevin
  4. Cas
  5. Dad



The Mark makes it hard to sleep most nights.

Most nights he dreams in blood and gore, the walls in the rooms covered in blood. Sometimes it’s his own blood, most of the time it’s Sam’s.

The nightmares used to be him killing his brother, killing Cas, killing the people he’s failed, killing some innocent civilian who got in his way. Now, though? Now those are the good nights. Those are the nights where he wakes up shaky and angry the next morning, but he doesn’t feel like he wants to claw out of his skin. 

The real nightmares are the ones where Sam and Cas kill  _him_. 

Because they  **can’t**. They can’t kill Dean - or at the very least, they can’t kill his body. 

Sure, there’s a way for them to kill what’s left of his soul, what’s left of him as a person, but as far as he can see it, there’s not a way for them to kill his  ~~vessel~~  body. Not without the Mark. Not without the First Blade. 

Not without damning themselves further.

He’s had time to adjust to the idea of becoming a monster. A demon. A killer, just for the sake of killing, again.

It scares him. Shit, it terrifies him.

But the thing that scares him most about all of this, that keeps him up at night, that makes him think taking himself out of the equation will be the best thing in the end? 

The thought of his body walking around as a demon or a Knight of Hell - whatever he is now - without him in it? Killing people?

He’s never been more scared of anything in his life. 

Because he knows, with every fiber of his being, that the thing that’s keeping him together right now is his soul. Or at least, what’s left of it.

It’s getting harder and harder to hear it, the goodness in him, but he knows it’s there. He can barely make it out under the screams of the Mark and the victims it wants him to take but if he focuses really really hard, he can still hear it. That low hum of stubborn righteousness, his mother’s voice telling him that he can do it. 

“ _My brave boy_ ,” Mary’s voice coos in the back of his head, “ _You are so strong. You are so good. You **can**  fight this, sweetheart. I believe in you_.” 

The Mark doesn’t drown it out but  _oh_ , oh it tries. It tries in its screaming baritone voice, the kind of voice that shakes Dean down to his very core, reminds him of Hell, makes him nauseous on his good days. 

He wonders sometimes if Sam understands, if he knows, or if he’s too busy trying not to piss Dean off.

He wonders if it’s himself or the Mark that makes him want to strangle his brother on his good days. He wonders if there even is a difference between himself and the Mark on his bad days. 

And he confesses this to Castiel on the phone one night when he’s drunk (not as drunk as he’d like) and hurt and scared. 

The Mark has been so loud today, so incredibly persistent, that Dean caught himself gripping the axe from Purgatory today after lunch, like he was ready to go to battle. 

He tossed the thing against the wall and immediately threw up in the bathroom.

He saw his eyes flash, just for a second, on his way out of the bathroom, and he barely managed to conquer the urge to throw up again. 

His body hasn’t felt like his for a long time, not since he was a demon, and it scares him. He’s never been especially comfortable in his skin, never felt completely at home in his own body, but at least it was his. At least before there was no doubt in his mind that it was his body.

Now he sees a face in the mirror and he’s not sure who it belongs to. 

Cas tries to reason with him, that his face looks no different, that he’s still the same person, no matter what the Mark makes him feel. 

Dean laughs because he knows it’s not true, not really. Maybe his face looks no different to his brother or to Charlie but he can see it in the mirror. 

He’ll catch a puff of smoke out of the corner of his eye sometimes. A quick flash of something that looks like a horn on his head when he’s driving down the interstate. The black eyes, the something else he doesn’t have a name for on his cheeks, the way his teeth seem to resemble a vampire on his bad days. 

He sees it, just like Cas sees it. Just like he sees Cas.

His halo, the shadows of what he thinks are supposed to be wings, the faint glow around his whole body. He can’t see his true form, not really, but he gets glimpses of it out of the corner of his eye.

A hoof here, a tail there, a mane of golden light.

He hears the hum of his Grace and the way the Mark tries to fight it, to overpower it, the way Cas’ Grace tries to fight back.

He sees the way the two clash when they touch each other, when Cas’ hand is in his own. He feels the way his arm flares up like it’s on fire, the way his shoulder feels like the cold water being sprayed onto it to put it out.

He felt the kiss on his shoulder, on his neck, during their last hunt. He felt the kisses on his face, on his lips, the kisses Cas pressed to the Mark in the back of the Impala in the motel parking lot. He felt the Grace surging through him when they made love in the back seat, just as Cas felt the wash of overwhelming anger from the Mark. 

Sometimes, if he lets himself think about it too hard, about them, he feels guilty.

Cas put his body back together, literally, and here he is, watching Dean get turned into something that they both hate. Watching, knowing in his gut that there’s nothing he can do.

He adds Cas’ name to the list again, gives him a couple more spaces. Just because he feels like he’s never going to stop failing him.

“ _Dean, you’ve never failed me_ ,” Cas promises him when he tells him this.

Dean just laughs and tells Cas that he has, over and over again, and he’s been trying to apologize for that ever since. Cas has hurt him just as thoroughly, just as intensely, but he’s never asked for an apology. He’s not sure he deserves one.

“ _You’re going to get through this, Dean_.” 

Cas ends every phone call, every text, with empty promises that make Dean’s chest ache with hope. With sadness. With envy, because he can’t remember what it’s like to hope, not anymore. 

The Book of the Damned had been his last hope and it crushed him.

He can’t be saved without sacrificing the lives of more people, more innocent people, and the weight he’s carrying is already too damn heavy to add a couple thousand more. 

The way he sees it: Sam uses the book, it cures the Mark and Dean’s crushed by all the guilt -  _or_  - they don’t use it, he goes nuclear, and Dean is (hopefully) put down before he can hurt anyone. 

He’s dead either way. 

Either way this goes down, his body’s going to be walking around without him, and he’ll be gone. What’s left of his soul will probably be sent to Purgatory, maybe even Hell again.

Hannah was never his biggest fan and honestly, he wouldn’t blame her for not letting him in to heaven. He doesn’t deserve it. 

Cas tells him that’s not true, that if anyone deserves to spend the rest of eternity in peace, it’s him. It’s him and his brother, but Cas’ voice cracks with the conviction that it’s Dean who deserves that much.

A quiet place that’s awful and isolating, but a quiet place for Dean to relive his best memories for the rest of eternity. 

Dean would rather get sent to Purgatory. 

Tonight he’s sitting on his bed, staring at the book of names in his lap, a pen balanced between two fingers in his hand. 

It’s something he’s been thinking about for a while, something he’s not sure if he wants to do. If he should do. If he  _deserves_  to do. 

It’s not like Sam knows about the journal, it’s not like he’ll ever go through Dean’s things if something does happen to him. It’s not like he’ll see this book and read through it. It’s not.

Cas knows, but he won’t need to see the book to know what’s in it.

But Dean - he knows he’s not going to make it to the end of this story. Not this time. This time his number’s being punched and he’s getting called to the principal’s office. 

This time he’s playing for keeps. 

He looks up at the picture of his mom on his bedside table, of her smiling face, and feels fondness well up in his chest.

Maybe he’ll get to see his mom again. Maybe Hannah will take pity on him and let him into heaven. Maybe he’ll find Ash. Maybe Ash has found his mom. Maybe he’ll see Kevin again or Sarah. Maybe he’ll get to apologize for failing them. 

“Okay,” he breathes out, his voice shaky, and starts flipping the pages to get to the end of the list. 

His hand is shaking and it takes him a couple tries to make sure his handwriting is legible on the list. It’s dumb, but he doesn’t want to mess it up.

      156. Dean Winchester

It’s an apology to himself. 

 

* * *

 

 

_Sigh no more, no more_  
_One foot in sea, one on shore_  
_My heart was never pure_  
_You know me_  
_You know me_

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at meardmish


End file.
